Warren Murphy - Last Rites

"Why aren't I surprised?"

"If you are not surprised, why do you dally?"

"Because I have a sinking feeling what these sponges are for now."

"What are sponges for?"

"Not for eating."

"Good. If not for eating, what then is their purpose?"

"Cleaning," Remo said without enthusiasm.

"You may begin now. You have until sundown." Remo started at one end of the isle, standing in water so he wouldn't have to kneel. Seabirds eyed him with hostile intent. Occasionally one dropped a present where he stood.

Soon Remo was covered in malodorous stuff. He kept scouring.

"This is starting to feel like the twelve freaking labors of Hercules," Remo complained.

And from the sponge trawler the Master of Sinanju burst into brief but polite applause.

"Why are you applauding?"

"Because you are half through with your noble chore."

"What's noble about being hip deep in bird shit?"

"The knowledge that you are conveniencing the seabirds of the next century who will have a clean nest to feather."

"Bulldooky," Remo grumbled.

"No. Gull guano."

When Remo was finally finished, it was late. The sun was going down, and the lights of Athens were coming on. High on the hill called the Acropolis, the many-columned Parthenon burst into radiance like an ivory shrine.

Remo raised his tattered sponges to the night sky. "Hallelujah. I'm done!"

A sea gull dropped a spatter of gray and white just in front of one ruined shoe.

Keeping his face triumphant, Remo eased one foot over the offending blot.

"I saw that," said Chiun.

Reluctantly Remo dropped to one knee and cleaned up the spot. He flung the sponge at the offending bird, and it dropped into the water, flustered and chastised.

As he climbed off the isle, other seabirds came along. Remo tried shoo them away. They shooed. But they also came back.

"You cannot leave as long as one spot remains," Chiun called out.

"The minute I turn my back, there's going to be more than one spot."

"This is your athloi."

"I thought cleaning the isle was my athloi!"

"No. You had to scour Guano Isle in order for the athloi to commence."

"That wasn't the freaking athloi? This is the freaking athloi?"

"Yes," intoned Chiun. "This is the freaking athloi."

"Damn."

Remo looked up. The white sea gulls were hanging in the wind, just like sea gulls the world over.

"We could be here all night," he warned Chiun. "You do not have all night. There is still the coin to find."

Remo made his voice resolute. "I say we pack it in and find that all-important coin."

"You cannot leave until you have completed the athloi."

"Can't leave tonight? Or can't leave ever?"

"Ever. That is the rule."

"Who made up this rule?"

"The Great Wang."

"He wouldn't do that to me."

"Take it up with him."

"He's been dead for three thousand years."

"Dawdler," spat Chiun.

Grumbling, Remo looked around the isle. It appeared to be made of rock and maybe some old coral. It was hard to say. A lot of it was porous. That might have been the nature of coral or the corrosive effect of centuries of gauno action.

The porous stuff broke off under his weight, so Remo willed his mass to adjust. Then he had a thought. Going to one end of the isle, he stamped hard. This had two results. It spooked the hovering sea gulls and it broke off a chunk of isle, which dropped into the now-very-white water.

Grinning, Remo repeated his action after moving back a pace. Another section of isle dropped into the water to sink from sight.

"What are you doing?" the Master of Sinanju shrieked as the west end of the island began to crumble into the Aegean.

"Completing my freaking athloi, " Remo retorted.

"What about future Masters?"

"I'm doing them a favor. They'll thank me."

"This is against the rules, as well."

"When the Great Wang tells me so, I'll stop," said Remo, redoubling his efforts.

"You are willful and disobedient!" Chiun accused.

"Maybe. But I'm also getting off this stupid rock." By midnight the isle had been reduced to the size of a trash-can lid, and Remo realized that he was going to drop himself into the befouled water sooner or later. So he took a deep breath, jumped up as high as he could and brought both feet stamping down on the last pitiful remainder of the isle.

It pulverized and dropped Remo into the water.

Eyes closed, he swam toward the bobbing boat. When Remo surfaced, Chiun glared down at him angrily.

"You are filthy."

"But triumphant."

"You have desecrated a shrine of Sinanju."

"Let's just get out of here. I'm exhausted."

Chiun shook his aged head. "You cannot climb aboard as you are. You must swim." And before Remo could protest, Chiun directed the trawler captain to weigh anchor.

The chain rattled up, and the screws began churning gray-white water. The trawler bubbled away.

Remo followed at a brisk pace, swearing all the way. After a while he noticed they weren't swimming north toward the Acropolis, but farther south into the island-dotted Aegean Sea.

"I don't like where this is going," Remo grumbled to himself.

And back from the muttering trawler came the Master of Sinanju's squeak, "How can you say that when you do not know where you are going?"

"Because I know you."

"You wish."

And Remo wondered what the Master of Sinanju meant by that.

Chapter 7

Four hours later the Greek sponge trawler put down anchor within sight of a sprawling island.

"Oh, no," said Remo, treading water with tired arms. "I'm not cleaning that! No way."

"This is not your athloi, " returned the Master of Sinanju. "Come, but do not profane this worthy vessel's deck with your soiled tread."

Chiun padded toward the bow and Remo swam around the boat, keeping pace with him.

At the bow the Master of Sinanju pointed toward the dark and rocky shoreline and said, "There is a sea cave in that inlet."

"I'm not going into any cave. And you know why."

"I am not in this cave, so do not fear to venture within."

"What am I supposed to do?"

"Enter this cave," said Chiun, "and find your way to the other end." He pointed down the coast, to the south. "I will await you at its exit."

"Sounds easy," Remo said reluctantly.

"Therefore, it cannot be easy."

"What's the name of this island anyway?"

"That will become obvious even to you once you enter the cave that awaits you."

Remo struck out for the cave. As he approached, the sea lapping against the shore made weird sobbing sounds, like an old woman crying.

The sea floor came up to scrape Remo's questing hands and bare feet. It felt like coral, but when Remo reached shore, he saw it was a gray-black volcanic rock.

He walked up to the cave mouth and listened. All he heard was the incessant sobbing, and when he compressed his eyelids to squeeze out all but necessary moonlight, the black cave mouth remained black and foreboding.

"Here goes," Remo said, entering the cave.

Wide at the mouth, the cave became more like a tunnel the deeper Remo passed into it. The feel of porous volcanic rock against his bare soles was unpleasant, but as his tough soles became accustomed to it, he soon put it out of his mind.

The ceiling sloped downward. Remo was forced to bend his head to keep walking.

Thirty feet in, the tunnel branched off in two directions. Remo paused and tried to figure out the right way to go. After a moment he realized that one branch went south toward where the cave exit was supposed to be.

Then again, since this whole test was Chiun's idea, the most logical choice was probably the wrong one. Remo took the northern tunnel, suppressing a grin of confidence.

It evaporated when he came to a blank wall before a quiet pool. In the darkness his feet discovered the pool. There was no sign of any secret walls or other exits.